This story has fallen by the wayside since a ton has happened, not least the tariff war and the ongoing war between the Trump White House and rogue district judges. But the Democrats might be without one of their main fundraising arms, as scores of top staffers have fled ActBlue amid serious allegations of malfeasance.
Congressional Republicans want the documents as they believe this operation received illegal campaign donations in 2024. Earlier this month, it was reported that ActBlue had tweaked the donation standards to rake in more cash, some of which came from foreign sources. They reportedly altered the fraud protocols twice (via NY Post):
Democratic fundraising powerhouse ActBlue changed its fraud policy twice during the 2024 campaign, implementing “more lenient” standards that let foreign and other suspicious donor money flow into US campaigns, according to internal company documents and other records exclusively obtained by The Post.
The ActBlue fraud-prevention standards changed in April 2024 and again that September, with the relaxed guidelines allowing between 14 and 28 more fraudulent contributions per month.
Under the updated policy, up to 6.4% of total ActBue donations that should have been rejected for fraud were missed.
The platform had already allowed donors to give money without a card verification value (CVV) for transactions until January 2024 — roughly halfway through the election cycle — and the new standards still instructed ActBlue employees to “look for reasons to accept contributions.”
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By December 2024, a sheet tallying “known instances of fraud” revealed hundreds of donations — including from Brazil, Colombia, India, Iraq, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, among other nations — were going toward Democratic campaigns and causes.
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At least 237 individual donations were made from foreign IP addresses using prepaid US debit or gift cards between September and October 2024, forcing ActBlue to ban the practice.
It also resulted in state-level probes and a bombshell racketeering lawsuit brought by a Wisconsin Republican strategist that alleged ActBlue stole his identity to allow 385 fraudulent contributions to go toward liberal groups — including then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ super PAC.
Between September 2022 and November 2024, ActBlue racked up 1,900 fraudulent transactions in total, but House Republicans who published the company’s internal documents in a report claim the suspicious donations are far more “widespread.”
Even when cheating, the Democrats couldn’t beat Trump in 2024.